Tech —

Mac Quicken ’09 still missing in action

All references to the new version of Quicken for Mac have been removed from …

All references to Quicken for the Mac 2009 have disappeared from Intuit's website, leaving users wondering when—if ever—the software will launch. The software, meant to be a "complete rewrite" of Quicken for Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard, was showcased at the Macworld Expo 2008 and originally expected to ship that year. However, after at least one delay, the software now appears to be MIA more than a year and a half after it was introduced.

Intuit first showed off its plans for Quicken Financial Life for Mac (the then working title) in January of 2008, hailing it as a complete rewrite of Quicken 2007 for Mac with new and better features. Users could track their cash flow, download info from banks, track taxes, and even create budgets, and was expected to launch as a beta by the fall of 2008. In September, however, Intuit said that the software had "required significant engineering and quality testing" and the company needed "some extra time to get it right." The ship date was moved to the winter of 2008.

Well, unless you live in another hemisphere, winter has come and gone. We are now in the throes of Summer 2009, and it appears as if Intuit has decided to celebrate the arrival of warm weather by removing all references to Quicken for Mac 2009 (which were previously found all over the company's website). This seems like a curious move for a company that has spent "significant" resources on developing its software.

The popular view here at the Orbiting HQ was that Intuit has decided to scrap the desktop version of Quicken in favor of its web client. This theory is compounded by the fact that Microsoft discontinued its desktop money management software, Microsoft Money, mere days ago. Microsoft's excuse was that banks and other websites now provide "a range of options for managing personal finances" and that consumer demand for Money was no longer at the level it once was. Assuming this is true, then the same likely applies to Quicken.

Before ringing alarm bells, however, we attempted to get an answer from Intuit on the issue. Intuit spokesperson Chelsea Marti reassured us that Quicken for Mac was "still in progress," and that the company was painstakingly listening to feedback from its "passionate" beta testers.

"As a result, getting a finalized Quicken for Mac product on the shelves is taking a bit longer, but rest assured, we're hard at work applying that feedback and getting it ready for prime time," Marti told us. "Quicken's perspective is that taking a bit more time than anticipated is a worthy trade-off for a great product our customers told us they wanted to see a certain way."

This still does not explain Quicken's mysterious disappearance from Intuit's website—a change that we remain suspicious of—but the company insists that the software is still in development and has not been scrapped. In the meantime, no new ship date was given, so if you're a Quicken fan, you'd better sit back and get ready for the long haul.

Jacqui Cheng
Jacqui is an Editor at Large at Ars Technica, where she has spent the last eight years writing about Apple culture, gadgets, social networking, privacy, and more. Emailjacqui@arstechnica.com//Twitter@eJacqui